I keep your name folded in my throat.
I used to breathe your name like an angry prayer,
A stressful blessing, that’s what I considered you,
A piece of me, something, someone I needed in my life,
Raised on a high pedestal, above the crowds,
Opinions that were better than considered more than anyone else’s.
A god with me as their loyal follower.
A follower who thought they were pulling all the strings from behind the curtains,
Who thought they had the god in their hand,
Only to realize it wasn’t like that.
The god pulled and yanked at the strings of the follower,
An emotional mess, a need for acceptance, the craving of being wanted.
A constant cycle of pushing and pulling,
I have you and then I don’t till it’s nothing at all,
Just silence and ignorance sitting in the space between us.
You keep my name folded in your pocket.
You utter my name in a plea, out of pure desperation,
Kept somewhere in reach but easy to misplace, easy to get rid of, easy to replace, easy to lose,
That alone is how you view me.
A follower of convenience, nothing more.
Someone who doesn’t leave your side, who clings to you, someone who begs for your understanding.
Yet it’s all fragile.
Anything comes between us,
Mental health, life, and overall boys.
You attract them like flies.
They stick around and buzz with their nonsense,
But the follower sees things the god can’t.
How the flies are mosquitoes,
They buzz and annoy the god who is oblivious to the blood they steal from both them and the follower,
The follower warns and warns, sticking stern to lead the god away from it, how the insects leave everlasting scars onto the god’s already damaged skin,
Damaged skin that affects the people around her,
The god is ignorant, careless, selfish
None of it actually matters to her,
No matter how much she convinces you it does.
Heartless.
Self absorbed,
Stuck.
A cycle.
One I can try over and over again to break free from,
But it doesn’t seem I can,
Because whenever I do my heart aches for the pain,
The feeling of being needed,
The feeling of knowing you better than anyone else will,
Knowing I was the one who stayed the longest,
Who knows so much,
And despite how “important” I was to you,
Now in the deepest of depths of space and “hatred” between us,
Your name haunts me,
Clawed into my skin,
Not an ounce of me had been introduced to your touch,
And yet I long for it,
Long for you to call my name again.
Even in the act of being of being used,
Of being the lowest on your pedestal,
Something i haven’t accepted,
I suppose I’ll stick with this haunting.
Stuck with your name written in my throat,
Not knowing whether it’s trying to be swallowed and forgotten or to mark itself back onto my tongue.
Author’s Note:
My mom was forcing me to get back into writing, i found a simple prompt on Pinterest and a song. 1 step forward, 3 steps back – Olivia Rodrigo, the poem is about a toxic sorta relationship that was bordered on platonic and romantic, and how it still seems to stick with me even after everything.
Symoria Collier | 16 | Michagan, USA | @mooniemoria on Instagram
